Predatory Publishing

Moshe Y. Vardi, Editor-in-Chief of the Communications of the ACM, has a nice editorial called "Predatory Scholarly Publishing" in the July 2012 issue. He names a junk journal and a mock conference and then notes that we shouldn't single out Elsevier for predatory publishing -- so many of the publishers today are guilty of focusing more on making money than on science.

He also refers to the Scholarly Open Access blog, run by Jeffery Beall, who has written extensively about junk science. I just love the entry on the "Six new vanity presses", in which he discusses:

• Intellectual Archive: "This site is an 'institutional repository' for people who ought to be institutionalized." 
• Wudpecker Research Journals: From India, that name does stand out
• Academy & Industry Research Collaboration Center:  A combined conference and journal from India. Just what the doctor ordered to meet your two publications a year.
• MASAUM Network: Only £200 for accepted papers
• Centre For Info Bio Technology (CIBTech): The spelling on their web page is apparently adventurous 
• Pelagia Research Library: does not say where it is located, but since it accepts payment in Rupees, Beall assumes that it is located there.

Another entry in Beall's blog on a Ridiculous New Publisher sums it up nicely:

"The open-access movement started with good will and good intentions. Unfortunately, it has now been co-opted by a bunch of corrupt schemers who threaten to destroy the foundation of scholarly communication."

We need to spread the word -- and find some way of separating the wheat from the chaff.